It’s easy to make snide remarks like “yes- I do the opposite of what he says.” And in some respects I agree, but if you do that, this is just going to be taken down. So I’m asking a serious question. Has ASR actually changed your opinion on anything? For me, I would say 2 things. I am a conservatory-trained musician and I do trust my ears. But ASR has reminded me to double check my opinions on a piece of gear to make sure I’m not imagining improvements. Not to get into double blind testing, but just to keep in mind that the brain can be fooled and make doubly sure that I’m hearing what I think I’m hearing. The second is power conditioning. I went from an expensive box back to my wiremold and I really don’t think I can hear a difference. I think that now that I understand the engineering behind AC use in an audio component, I am not convinced that power conditioning affects the component output. I think.
So please resist the urge to pile on. I think this could be a worthwhile discussion if that’s possible anymore. I hope it is.
The Naysayer Church wants you to trust their antiquated science (1800’s electrical theory) and faith-based, religious doctrine, BLINDLY ("Trust ME!").
What? I thought it was your group that says "I trust my ear so you must trust what I say." That is definition of asking someone to trust you blindly. We on the other hand believe in bringing independent proof. We do that with not only measurements but proper knowledge of electronic design and sciences around perception. You want to throw all of that out ask us to believe what someone perceives through faulty listening tests. This fits what you see above to the letter.
You really think engineers don't know what a wire does? Or what a rack does for equipment performance? That they need audiophiles to tell them there are differences that can't be explained?
Anyone that knows anything about the sciences, realizes that something like 96% of what makes up this universe, remains a mystery.
You believe in that science but when it comes to audio, all of a sudden we know nothing. But let me ask you this: do you worry about dark matter with respect to performance of your car? Do you know dark energy is what pushes your car ahead instead of a know chemical reaction?
If the answer is no, why on earth do you believe that putting a battery connected to one end of an audio cable makes it sound better? I mean are you not at all moved that when I measure this Audioquest cable, that I can't even detect a difference down to many decimal places with with the battery on or off?
Seeing how these companies don't present a single listening test research showing efficacy is not a concern to you? That any and all things must make a difference to somebody as to then keep the floodgates open to all of them?
Are you not concerned that some of these things do the opposite that is claimed? Here is a Nordost flat cable noise immunity test:
Compare that to cheap generic cable (watch the top right graph):
This cable not only costs a lot more, it is also a pain in the neck to use as high-end cables are almost always are:
Why can't you leave any room for independent evaluation of products showing issues like these? You don't take medication without such, why do you spend incredible amount of money on these audio tweaks this way?
Doesn't it make sense that it is pretty easy to make money by making a fancy looking cable and selling it for thousands of dollars? Just like a magic trick, isn't reasonable that your senses can be fooled enough to make a sale?
LIKEWISE: no one can possibly know whether a new addition (ie: some kind of disc, crystal, fuse, interconnect, speaker cable, etc) will make a difference, in their system and room, with their media and to their ears, without trying them for themselves.
Oh we can. If I told you that my music sounds warmer when I wear read socks vs blue you are going to go along with that? You won't opine that this can't be possible? That we could measure the effect of red vs blue socks and show conclusively that there is no difference? Or use knowledge of acoustics that says what light sees as far as color, doesn't matter when it comes to sound?
What if I insisted that I can hear the difference? What if I started to sell red socks saying it makes your music sound warmer, more like real instruments and less "digital?" What then? I am still good to go and you will defend me if someone shows up with all of the above science and engineering to show these socks can't possibly make a difference?
You see the problem? Some of you have let your guard down so much that you know believe anything can make a difference in sound. You don't realize how trivial it is for your brain to manufacture differences where there is none in the sound waves. You not only go along with these faulty tests and conclusions and come to these forums encouraging people to do the same. And damage is done.
You don't live the rest of your life this way. Don't do it for audio. Know the limits of your audio testing. It is not like you are born with knowledge of your brain and perils of ad-hoc subjective testing.
@daveyf, of course I listen. I guess I gave the impression I did not. I listened at stores, I listened to what other people said, I even did in home trials. Funny thing the brain though, it often tells you what you want to hear, and I think in a strange joke of mother nature on audiophiles, the harder you listen, the more your brain tells you what you want to hear. Looking back on my journey, I think I convinced myself of a lot of stuff that was not true. That is why I was always looking for the next upgrade. I was not doing a lot of anything though I thought I was.
No one can tell you whether/how your system, room and/or ears will respond to some new addition. There are simply too many variables.
When I thought I knew everything but really knew nothing, this is what I believed too. Now that I have a good foundation of how things work, including the metaphorical me, and by me I mean our hearing, I have a pretty good idea, if I can get enough information, to know how the system (including all the pieces) will respond and what that means for the sound I will hear. I no longer feel I am on the merry-go-round, lots of movement but always ending up in the same place. Now I am walking a line to where I want to go. It is not always straight, but I keep moving forward, not in a circle.
I beg your pardon but all my posts which are a rational discussion with Amir were not about subjectivits and objectivists, which is a MEANINGLESS debate let to itself most of the times; but more about the relation between measuring context and hearing theories, mainly Fourier inspired theory of hearings and ecological theory of hearings...I debate him about PSYCHO-ACOUSTIC not about his objectivism techno ideology as most audiophile subjectivist do WITH NO SUCCESS because they dont adress the fundamentals behind measures and behind hearings..
i like to be understood... Dont take it personal...
This thread, like many others, seems to boil down to the ’subjective’ vs. ’objective’ arguments, and which are better?
This thread, like many others, seems to boil down to the ’subjective’ vs. ’objective’ arguments, and which are better?
IOW, nothing new here.
@othercrazycanuck You say that you bought all kinds of gear based on professional reviews and recommendations. Did you not consider listening to the gear first for yourself, before a purchase? IME, to spend $$ on any gear before first having the chance to listen is really the ONLY way to know if the piece under consideration fits into your listening biases! ( and we all have listening biases, which is why i fall into the subjective camp). Perhaps being in an area/locale that is removed from the ability to actually source these pieces for yourself, would lead to acquisitions based on someone else’s reviews or recommendations, but I think then relying on purely measurements posted by anyone would also lead to major disappointment.
No one can tell you whether/how your system, room and/or ears will respond to some new addition. There are simply too many variables.
LIKEWISE: no one can possibly know whether a new addition (ie: some kind of disc, crystal, fuse, interconnect, speaker cable, etc) will make a difference, in their system and room, with their media and to their ears, without trying them for themselves.
Some companies offer a 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee, so- those that are actually interested, have absolutely nothing to lose, by trying (experimenting with) such.
Anyone that knows anything about the sciences, realizes that something like 96% of what makes up this universe, remains a mystery.
For centuries; humanity’s seen, heard, felt and otherwise witnessed phenomena, that none of the best minds could explain, UNTIL they developed a science or measurement, that could explain it.
The Naysayer Church wants you to trust their antiquated science (1800’s electrical theory) and faith-based, religious doctrine, BLINDLY ("Trust ME!").
Theories have never proven or disproven anything. It’s INVARIABLY testing and experimentation that proves or disproves theories/hypotheses.
IF you’re interested in the possibility of improving your system’s presentation, have a shred of confidence in your capacity for perceiving reality and trust your own senses: actually TRY whatever whets your aural appetite, FOR YOURSELF.
Very easy answer...Point me the thread where someone debate Amir about the Fourier /ecological theory of hearing in psycho-acoustics and the relation with his opinion ?
It is easy to answer by insulting someone... More easy to escape by saying what he said is "COMMON PLACE"... It is not common place dude... You confuse generality with specfic deep philosophical points about hearing and your limited opinion..
You are right about one thing : i have an ego yes and a quick temper , but i can recognize when i am wrong... And i dont mix common place fact with DEEP question in psycho-acoustics..
And i learned how to apologize after insulting people... Ask your mother..
You will not answer me on this debate anyway , you are not able to do so anyway it seems..
I wish you the best and forget my verbose posts in the future...
I did not insult you, I pushed back on your self flattery, As to the rest of your post, I’ll opt for the much quoted Mark Twain quip on the matter, and abstain. I had all this of this debate ~50 years back, ain’t nothing new here.
I did not insult you, I pushed back on your self flattery, As to the rest of your post, I'll opt for the much quoted Mark Twain quip on the matter, and abstain. I had all this of this debate ~50 years back, ain't nothing new here.
If someone is not enough wise to separate my heavy syntax from my arguments from hearing theory aspects and call my posts "repetitious verbosity" this reflect more his limited mind process than my "verbosity"..
Just a question if i want to know if you get the point : What is the relation bettwen a Gibson ecological perspective on sound hearing impressions and a Fourier inspired one ?
And what is the relation of this with Amir opinions about measures and my opinion , and what are the relation of all this to design ; and WHY AM I WRONG OR RIGHT, in spite of my VERBOSITY ?
If you brain work, answer or DEBATE before insulting me...If you cannot BABBLE a RATIONAL answer go into the cells of hell reserved to your kind...
I dont insult anyone, if i did it because of my quick temper or by misunderstanding i APOLOGIZE but i answer to insults IMMEDIATELY ...
I wait for your answer and in details bright mind ...
I am perhaps not surprised, but also disappointed in the animosity towards audio science review. As I stated earlier in this thread, I learned more there than every other site combined. There are blowhards there like everywhere else, and I got the odd abuse for asking a question some thought was dumb, but I took my lumps, pushed back as appropriate and moved on. Many were helpful even putting what I could tell was significant time into their replies. I had picked up a lot of bad audio habits over the years (decades), and i was fully loaded with all kinds of information but no way to put it all together into something useful. Whether from dealers, audio sites, etc. any time I had asked for recommendation or ideas, I was always inundated with what, but rarely why. Like a kid in a candy shop, perhaps my fault I did not asked enough why questions, I bought all kinds of stuff based on recommendations and professional reviews. Frankly, I was mainly wasting my money. I didn't get a lot of what recommendations at ASR, other than this is probably good enough, but I got a lot of why discussions and why questions and why explanations. I had to sort through the chafe as the aforementioned blowhards like to be heard, but there were enough people who really knew their subject.
Perhaps the best case in point would be speaker setup. I could point to 3 or 4 guides on how to set up speakers in a room. I am sure they all have some correct aspects. I am also sure that they are all fundamentally wrong enough or too simple to result in anything but barely acceptable results. Not one of them beyond some rough discussion of bass response explains much about why, and if you don't know why, then how do you adapt?
I think I have posted enough on this subject, people will think what they want to think, but I will repeat something someone else said earlier. I think the attitudes demonstrated are hiding a lot insecurity. I was probably there at one point. Takes a big person to admit they were wrong.
If you add Bidenism disease to Trumpism disease, i apologize to you ...
But refrain yourself to insult Amir, i did not partake any of his ideas about measurements meanings at all , as my long posts here demonstrated, not by insults, but by DEEP ARGUMENTS...
Then you were right about my ignorant political disagreement with you, but i am afraid that your post about Amir reflect ignorance more than lucidity...
Insulting is not a good way to debate sonmeone and put him in a corner...
Thats my point...
Again i apologize for my misreading of your political standpoint...
Amir has taught me nothing about audio but his site and its "pinball wizards" (deaf, dumb and broke kids) have taught me a lot about cult psychology. When one person has a crazy idea (say, in audio reproduction, measurements matter more than how something actually sounds, or everything audible is measurable by today's instruments), they are challenged by peers and the crazy idea gets rejected and the species evolves in a pro-survival direction. But when they surround themselves with other crazy people, there’s no challenge and the idea lives on because they feel social acceptance based on that idea. This phenomenon is massively dangerous and just a small version of the same idea destroying the US democracy and eventually possibly the world, namely Trumpism.
Amir has taught me nothing about audio but his site and its "pinball wizards" (deaf, dumb and broke kids) have taught me a lot about cult psychology. When one person has a crazy idea (say, in audio reproduction, measurements matter more than how something actually sounds, or everything audible is measurable by today's instruments), they are challenged by peers and the crazy idea gets rejected and the species evolves in a pro-survival direction. But when they surround themselves with other crazy people, there’s no challenge and the idea lives on because they feel social acceptance based on that idea. This phenomenon is massively dangerous and just a small version of the same idea destroying the US democracy and eventually possibly the world, namely Trumpism.
Because Amir when he gives us his gear measuments reviews , so useful it can be, and they are, implicitly state that all of what we can say about "audible qualities" of the gear is once for all contained in the limited set of measures he use critically ...
This is false, on many counts which one is evident for may people already: no measurements can replace listenings analysis... Even Amir use listening analysis even if biased by his faith in his measures results, he use at least as he said blind test...
But this measures dogma is false on a much deeper level , because there is an evident needs for anyone adding to any set of measures the complementary listening tests analysis , this DOGMA is false ALSO AND MORE DEEPLY on the account of the necessary HEARING THEORY CONTEXT where any set of measurements must be INTERPRETED... We must display this hearing theory context where this set of measures are interpreted as meaningful ..
It is not enough to measure distortion or any other design factors if we are not conscious of the hearing theory context where the "audible musical qualities and sound qualities" are rightfully defined OR NOT ...
The only one argument Amir offered me is : Dont listen Oppenheim and Magnasco , or Van Maanen or J. J. Gibson (who anyway he does not even know)... He say instead come to ASR...😊 But the discussion between Amir and me is here...
But anyway i already came to visit ASR which is an interesting informative site where luminaries as Floyd Toole came too..
The problem is not the information level of ASR... It is the ideology by zealots who harass others from different perspectives , as with audiogon , the ideology by subjectivists zealots insulting Amir...
As i said objectivist as subjectivist focus on gear not on PSYCHO-ACOUSTIC... Two tribes with the same blind spot...
But even if subjectivist may be ignorant they intuitively know that listening pay more than measuring when we pick gear or choose to tune our room as i did...i prefer to learn acoustic listenings than consult measures for an "upgrade"...Measuring is NECESSARY... Listenings is MORE THAN NECESSARY...
Anyway, rightful VERIFIED hearing theory indicate human HYPERACUITY is related to evolution and as J. J. Gibson demonstrated in visual perception , not to Fourier analysis of elementary ABSTRACT factor and their computing by the brain so much as to physical invariants relating the hearing producing body to the sound sources qualities ... The production of sound is based on PERCEPTION... And the perception is TRAINED by the production of sounds... Not by abstract measures in the Fourier context... Any musician know this...
Then audible musical qualities and sound qualities , they are REAL, not illusions, they reflect real qualities in the vibrating sound sources, and by evolution our own body was TUNED to perceive them in a productive and active way...
It is in this active and productive way we must design components of gear measuring what is necessary to PLEASE the human ears and the musicians needs, not the opposite’ submitting hunman ears to the technological babble coming from Abstracted concepts from Fourier linear and time independant models... Designer must use Fourier but overpass Fourier limited frequency domain and linear perspective by recognizing the non linear way and the time dependant way the ears identifies and qualifies the sound sources... It is in substance what Hans Van Maanen said in all his articles...And many other amplifiers designer using tubes and S.S. design too...
Mass market design standards are the floor not the ceilings of creative design... Hearing theory is the only context where any measurements deliver its meanings...
In psycho-acoustic physics and engineering is the slave of neurology and psychology not the reverse...
Amir cannot refute my post...
Marketing his site and expertise is Ok , he is an expert, and it is an interesting site; but thats all... Sound qualities EXIST, they are not mere illusions, and no measures described them better than hearings experience, because in psycho-acoustic , as the word psycho indicate, the measures serve the act of hearing experience not the reverse... Psycho-acoustician dont design amplifier they taught to engineers how to design them in a more "musical" way...
Mass market is not high end design, and high end designers are not all fraudsters despising any measures or pretending to something without proof...
There is high designer here in Audiogon, as Van Maanen is in Netherlands... They also use psycho-acoustic measures too not only electronic components measures ...
i will stop here apologizing for my long clumsy posts in a language i master very badly on a multidisciplinary subject very deep...As asked Amir : what are your competence ? i own none ...I only know how to read in French and in English... Alas! i never spoke or wrote english and my vocabulary is from philosophical and science books... No fluid syntax by me then and a kimited abstract vocabulary and a bad reading of humor or inability to catch between the line meanings sometimes ... 😊
Anyway Amir cannot object and did not objected anything to my main point about the hearing theory context ( non linearity and Hearing time DEPENDANCY and his meaning for interpretating measures and design ) ... All his arguments where beside the main point, good arguments sometimes or rectifications ( Magnasco and Oppenheim for example is not NOVELTY, it only confirm the limits of Fourier context analysis of hearing aLREADY KNOWN FOR 60 years and Amir is right here saying that it is not really novelty information it is a CONFIRMATION indeed ) but when he say that Van Maanen get it wrong, i smile, sorry, Van Maanen know his stuff and cannot be described as "amateur" about circuits design among other things ... A physicist working in fluid theory with expertise in electronics and as an acoustician designing his own amplifiers and speakers brand based on non linear and time dependant theory of hearing as hobby is not an audiogon subjectivist, you know what i mean ? 😉
Hilde45 is right , my posts are way too long, but at least they had a content...
You see the power of measurements to quantify audible issues? You see how the theory you read in that one paper does not at all related to any of this? You see how you should challenge the one designer to produce proper measurements of his amplifier and controlled listening tests showing some benefit in his design approach?
I have read the papers you keep quoting. I will say once again, they have no bearing whatsoever on the topic we are discussion. Go ahead and quote where Oppenheim and Magnasco say anything about audio measurements being obsoleted by that experiment. You won’t find it.
You dont understand what i spoke about relating theory of hearing with the elemental elements linked to Acoustic historical analysis in the frequency domain...( frequencies, amplitude, phase, duration... These primitive of sound measured in the linear and time independant context of the Fourier paradigm CANNOT define what musicality is in life and in gear design... because human hearings hyperacuity live and move in an ecological real environment not in a laboratory...
tHe most important factor you did not understand at all is the time dependant nature of hearing... The way we recognize TIMBRE by his attack first and his decay and not only the spectral envelope but the time envelope, this recognition is a real WHOLE irreductible information which RECOGNIZED by the human ears cannot be reduced to primitive as frequencies, amplitude, phase, duration... Why ? because the ears recognize the soud source vibrating as an information wholeness a QUALITY which say something about the sounding sources , a drum, a speech part, a flowing river or a bird... All this event cannot be recognized by analysis and reduction to , frequencies, phase, duration amplitude etc...
It is why the musical qualities related to a musical instrument or to a recorded sound are whole without separated parts, QUALITIES...
I never doubt your good faith...
Then i will remind you that if always thank you MULTIPLE TIMES for your FALSIFICATION of mass market product gear, it is because the set of measures you used made this VERIFICATION and make possible to begin with some predictions about the excellence or not of the basic design... I never contested that... Then you cannot put in my mouth a falsehood : i never say that your measures set is meaningless ... IS IT CLEAR ?
The only thing i criticized is this extension of your set of measures to the level where supposedly ALL MUSICAL QUALITATIVE CHARACTERISTIC of the audio system and his design , and not only of separate component would be all there is to do to and to know to create OPTIMAL high end DESIGN...Some zealots around you use this modest fact, the analysing of mass market product by the numbers, to bash all Audiophiles listening...
Now i will explain my point about hearing theories , accordingly to Magnasco and Oppenheim and the opinion of Van Maanen about NEW MORE MUSICAL AMPLIFIER OR SPEAKER DESIGN... or how to apply Magnasco And Oppenheim experiments which is only confirmation of facts well known by others scientists already as you know...
first a liitle bit of history about J. J. Gibson ECOLOGICAL theory of visual perception : "Gibson challenged the idea that the nervous system actively constructs conscious visual perception, and instead promoted ecological psychology, in which the mind directly perceives environmental stimuli without additional cognitive construction or processing." ..
Before Gibson the visual creation of images was imagined more as an algorythmic computing way ( which computing is not excluded by Gibson ) not as the way the seeing DYNAMICALLY MOVING body insert himself in his environment , where what is there around him , THE AFFORDANCES , determine, conditione, constraint, limit and motivate his possible behaviour ... my quotes are from Wiki because the resume is useful for me:
"The question driving Gibson’s research on perception was "how do we see the world as we do?". This instigated his empirical research, the environment, and how the individual experiences said environment.[10] There were two primary ways in which James J. Gibson reformed the way psychology views perception. The first is that the templates of our stimulation are affected by a moving organism. This was shown through his research on optic arrays. Secondly, he formulated the idea of three-dimensional space being conceptual. To Gibson, perception is a compilation of the person’s environment and how the person interacts with it.
Much of Gibson’s work on perception derives from his time spent in the U.S. Army Air Force. Here, he delved into thoughts on how imperative perception is on daily functions.[10] His work may be the first to show a distinct difference between types of perception. Form perception, on one hand, is a display of two static displays, whereas object perception, involves one of the displays to be in motion.... His basic work rejected the perspective that perception in and of itself is meaningless, he instead argued meaning is independent of the perceiver. He claimed that the environment decides perception, and that meaning is in what the environment "affords" the observer...
In his later work (such as, for example, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (1979)), Gibson became more philosophical and criticised cognitivism in the same way he had attacked behaviorism before. Gibson argued strongly in favour of direct perception and direct realism (as pioneered by the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid), as opposed to cognitivist indirect realism. He termed his new approach ecological psychology. He also rejected the information processing view of cognition. Gibson is increasingly influential on many contemporary movements in psychology, particularly those considered to be post-cognitivist.[11] One of the most important statements in this book is that Gibson maintains that the optical information of an image is not an impression of form and color, but rather of invariants. A fixated form of an object only specifies certain invariants of the object, not its solid form...
i think you have enough about Gibson to have a GIST of his approach...
now think about what Magnasco And Oppenheim has said :
""In seminars, I like demonstrating how much information is conveyed in sound by playing the sound from the scene in Casablanca where Ilsa pleads, "Play it once, Sam," Sam feigns ignorance, Ilsa insists," Magnasco said. "You can recognize the text being spoken, but you can also recognize the volume of the utterance, the emotional stance of both speakers, the identity of the speakers including the speaker’s accent (Ingrid’s faint Swedish, though her character is Norwegian, which I am told Norwegians can distinguish; Sam’s AAVE [African American Vernacular English]), the distance to the speaker (Ilsa whispers but she’s closer, Sam loudly feigns ignorance but he’s in the back), the position of the speaker (in your house you know when someone’s calling you from another room, in which room they are!), the orientation of the speaker (looking at you or away from you), an impression of the room (large, small, carpeted).
My point for an ecological theory of hearing based on NON linear structure of the ears/brain and the TIME DEPENDANT domain where the hearing body MOVES...my point is this one :
" Studies of audition have been constrainted by sensation based theory of perception and the supposed PRIMITIVES of sound they suggest.physical description of sounds are those suggested by the Fourier transform : frequencies, amplitude, phase duration.. Traditional explanations from psycho-physics takes these primitives physical dimensions as their primitive elemental stimulis and used them to motivated the identification of elemental sensations.From this perspective more complex perceptions must depend on the integration of elemental sensations, but often sensations seems inadequate to simulate complex events ( whole qualitative perceived recognized event ) Thus traditional approaches argue that there is often a paucity of information in available stimulis and then that veridical perception must depend on REPRESENTATIONs of the world based largely on memory, unconscious inference or problem solving ( Fourier computations etc ) ... »
Then as described Manasco and Oppenheim and many acousticians before them Hearing theory cannot be based on the frequency domain inspired by Fourier Linear method where
because the ears brain non linearly insert the moving hearing body in his time dependant domain where the WHOLE sound event, with all his perceived qualities not the separated abstracted parts, (his amplitude, his frequencies , his phase and his duration) are the REAL INVARIANTS... Then in natural sounds environment, with speech and musical sounds, the Sound sources in vibration are related to the hearing by sensible holistic invariants very different than those in the Fourier time indepedant and linear domain... These holistic invariants are qualities of the vibrating soud sources, another individuals or a drum or a flowing river etc... these holistic invariants expressing qualities are in the time dependant domain of the ears perceptive way ...
How this apply to amplifier design ?
This is explained in Van Maanen articles i will not repeat here... Suffice to say that the human hearing must not be conditioned by the way we measure linear design of circuits, but we must use these circuits by improving them to approximate by more sophisticated design in the time dependant domain , by feedback control and by using distortion levels control in the harmonic scale to please the human ears .... The design must serve the listening ears... Not the reverse, the design must not be considered "perfect" on the basis only of his numbers... Van Maanen here explaint it all ...But i cannot resume all his articles...
Now you know why if your set of measures is welcome and helpful , your claims that we are able to predict with these set of measures AS IT IS NOW IN YOUR TOOL BOX all there is to say about gear "musicality" qualities , it is WRONG... ( your tools are linear tool in the time independant domain, and remember that if you go in the time domain in your analysis , you go there LINEARLY as Fourier theory make it possible, not as the ears goes non linearly in his OWN time dependant domain )
@amir_asrNot really. It seems to be personal annoyance and a vendetta against Erin to be honest.
Why are other YouTube reviews and comparisons allowed? This one being a prime example. It’s a top list and still remains. How many discussions in the speaker category are one product against another? I am going to venture and say it’s a large percentage. People want to compare. Top lists exist for a reason. I gleaned new information from that video as Erin talked about dispersion et al.
I do however give you credit for calling out @soundfieldbecause they really wont put up any measurements, which is what you said.
Answer was clearly given and in detail in my post when I closed the thread. Your question has been repeatedly answered here as well. That you don't accept the answer is not my issue. It is yours. Disagree and move on.
Thanks for the discussion... I learned a lot... i am not qualified in any way, i am not an engineer, but i know how to read... And Hans Van Maanen is more than qualified here... I read his very simple and very clear articles among others
My pleasure. You make a key point here. Just like you, other audiophiles can read too. So audio marketing people will throw big sounding technical words that often they even don't understand to then make a technical claim they don't have to prove. Said audiophile draws inferences from everyday life and the sale is made.
Cable maker says said wire needs 200 hour break in. Audiophile remembers that cars used to have such break in periods and automatically believes that wires must also need the same.
You should be skeptical of these claims when they are provided with no proof points, either in the form of measurements or controlled listening tests. You have post repeatedly on topic yet you have not provided anything like this. Reading your comments, and please forgive me for being blunt, it is very clear that you are not understanding the mathematical nature of the topic being discussed or its relevance to measurements or audio equipment performance.
To wit, you keep saying there is something wrong with all the measurements we run. Well, yesterday I reviewed the Roksan Attessa streaming amplifier. Here is our dashboard including FFT on top right:
The Fourier transform is decomposing the innocent looking time domain scope measurement on the left and warning us that the power supply is generating a ton of hum and noise. So much so that it is higher than the distortion the amplifier is producing! Pure, voltage (time) domain analysis of noise showed the problem again:
Notice that it can't even clear the noise floor of 16 bit music at full power let alone at my reference 5 watts.
Are you going to claim that this is a well engineered amplifier and these measurements are not probative because you read a paper on Fourier uncertainty principle? Before you say yes, let me tell you that the owner had heard this same amplifier at a dealer and distinctly detected hum in one channel. He wanted to find out if this was a real problem with all units produced so purchased the new unit and had it drop shipped to me. Measurements conclusively predict and prove what he heard. Not only that, it pointed to where the fault in design is.
My, again time domain, measurements also showed very audible spike when the unit is powered on and off:
Another own this morning post that he indeed hears those pops in his amplifier.
None of this was done to verify some spec. No performance spec is provided by the company anyway.
You paid $3,200 for an amplifier that is not as silent and clean as a $100 amplifier I have tested recently.
You see the power of measurements to quantify audible issues? You see how the theory you read in that one paper does not at all related to any of this? You see how you should challenge the one designer to produce proper measurements of his amplifier and controlled listening tests showing some benefit in his design approach?
I have read the papers you keep quoting. I will say once again, they have no bearing whatsoever on the topic we are discussion. Go ahead and quote where Oppenheim and Magnasco say anything about audio measurements being obsoleted by that experiment. You won't find it.
Thank you for your quick response, amir. I hope you won’t mind if I can clarify an issue (I realise how many queries you are attempting to answer at the same time, so I fully understand if you missed this) -
My question was if you could advise if the test was a good way to gauge listening ability, but your reply involved "Methods for the subjective assessment of small impairments in audio systems", training and learning.
My question did not have anything to do with a method, or training, or audio systems, just whether the test, even if intended to have participants give a ‘no, there is no difference’ answer; only if you could advise if it was a good starting point to gauge ‘listening ability’.
You have me at a disadvantage as I thought I clearly answered your question. Once again, no, it is not a proper test so doesn't make for a good starting point or any starting point for that matter.
It reminds me of buying a Japanese learning CDs years ago at an airport. It claimed full immersion and quick learning. I start the lesson and first thing it wants to teach is the words for Horse and Jockey! I am pretty sure that should not be the starting point to learn any new language unless you are into horses. :)
But tell me what you concluded about the results of the tests you ran. Who had good listening ability and why?
Fourier theory is not part of the design of any amplifier. Nor is Fourier theory what the paper is about that you keep posting
I never said a such non sensical thing about Fourier being part of the material design of an amplifier... They are the background theory for the hearing based frequency theory... i always spoke myself about hearing theory and the impact on design QUALITATIVE INTERPRETATION and the predictive relation between perceived "musicality" of the gear and some sets of LINEAR measures IN THE MASS MARKET INDUSTRY which are not enough to predict "musicality" of the gear because the human hearings work non linearly in the time dependant domain Simple.... I only said that some set of measures are interpretated in the LINEAR context with Fourier theory as a frequency based Hearing theory in the background interpretative context instead of a time dependant theory...By the way going in the time domain with your measures interpreted in a linear context, DOES NOT MEANS YOU WORK IN THE TIME DEPENDANT DOMAIN of hearing theory...The CRUX is not the time domain symmetricality in itself ( laws of nature can be read mathematically in a time independant way ) but it non symmetrical direction, then time dependant one, in a non linear way for human EARS/brain workings..
And again, much of our audio measurements is done in time domain with no usage of Fourier transforms. They are not bound by any uncertainty principal because they don’t attempt to quantify either time or frequency. When we use Fourier transforms, it is to decompose a signal, i.e. its distortion products. We don’t intend or rely on its frequency resolution.
All your measures being interpretated linearly OUT OF THE SPECIFICS NEEDS from a hearing theory based on what MAagnasco and Oppenheim and Van Maanen asked for, cannot have then any concluding value for interpreting them as "good sound" in a psycho-acoustic sense and i a predictive way... A good standard design dont means a "musical" pleasurable sound quality... You then really means only "good sound" as an attribution in a mass marketing standardized designing sense of the words... ... What you call "good sound" then with your set of measures has nothing to do with real "perceived sound qualities" in a psycho-acoustic SUBJECTIVE sense.... Then objectivists claiming the opposite are wrong...If anyone claim the opposite then it is because someone want to IMPOSE what must be a "good sound" with a hearing theory which is linear and TIME INDEPENDANT...
But now we have no debate TOGETHER you said it very clearly : Your set of measures cannot be claimed as to have any PREDICTIVE PERCEIVED SOUND QUALITY VALUES out of the numbers revealing some aspect of distortions and jitter, etc ...The fact that you equate it with good sound QUALITIES is purely an abuse of words; you means good standard design... Then Probability of a good sound with no predictive attribute .. As you say you LISTEN with behind your head the measures biases you had taken BUT you submit yourself to blind test...perfect then...
Then i had no more point of disagreement with you... It is the objectivists around you reading your reviews who EXTRAPOLATE and ATTACK subjectivism claiming to some "musicality" and grow in a cult using some specialized set of measures as PREDICTIVE instead of being only : minimal or optimal standards with no predictive value for "musicality"...Which quality is "unreal" or "illusory" anyway for them ......You are more "neutral" than this circle around you and you do a job thats all... And effectively you cannot be faulted for the rudeness and wrong interpretations of others.. yOu stay silent and give your reviews... Anybody can interpret your verdict as predictive of "good sound" or not... It is up to them... And up to a blind test... 😊
Thanks for the discussion... I learned a lot... i am not qualified in any way, i am not an engineer, but i know how to read... And Hans Van Maanen is more than qualified here... I read his very simple and very clear articles among others.....magnasco and Oppenheim experiments are after 60 years the culmination of a trend growing in hearing theories : Human hearing must be based on an Ecological theory of hearing as exist an ecological theory of visual perception by J. J. Gibson and based on the AFFORDANCES given by natural sound analyased in a non linear way in the time dependant domain by the ears/brain... I suppose you know this book :
wikipedia:
«James Jerome Gibson (/ˈɡɪbsən/; January 27, 1904 – December 11, 1979) was an American psychologist and is considered to be one of the most important contributors to the field of visual perception. Gibson challenged the idea that the nervous system actively constructs conscious visual perception, and instead promoted ecological psychology, in which the mind directly perceives environmental stimuli without additional cognitive construction or processing.[1 »
he wrote one of the most influential book about visual perception research in the century...
All my observations about the non linear and time dependant dimension of hearings and their future impact on gear design must be interpreted in this book context ... Van Maanen use this hearing theory to design his amplifiers ande speakers... This is the reason why i used it...
Then no i am not qualified, J. J. Gibson and Magnasco and Oppenheim and Van Maanen are qualified more than necessary...
Keep for yourself your theory that all there is to say about sound qualities is relative to your limited set of measures...
Thank you for your quick response, amir. I hope you won’t mind if I can clarify an issue (I realise how many queries you are attempting to answer at the same time, so I fully understand if you missed this) -
My question was if you could advise if the test was a good way to gauge listening ability, but your reply involved "Methods for the subjective assessment of small impairments in audio systems", training and learning.
My question did not have anything to do with a method, or training, or audio systems, just whether the test, even if intended to have participants give a ‘no, there is no difference’ answer; only if you could advise if it was a good starting point to gauge ‘listening ability’.
The first response you gave me the impression you had already decided the test was not good for training or or learning. The test was certainly not posturing as being anything other than a simple measure if an individual could hear the differences of resolution in the two files presented.
It seems to me, with the results I got from the twelve friends I asked, that the test, however basic, served its purpose. I wondered if you could advise if this simple test works well enough as a beginning to determine good listeners from bad listeners, all training aside.
The Fourier theory is very powerful and useful for audio, but it can only be applied correctly when the conditions imposed are fulfilled.
Fourier theory is not part of the design of any amplifier. Nor is Fourier theory what the paper is about that you keep posting. The Fourier theorem as it is more properly called, is a mathematical proof. It used in some signal processing domains such as lossy audio compression. It has no applicability to an analog amplifier. Such an amplifier is not performing any transform from analog to digital or vice versa.
You are intermingling topics because of lack of understanding of the underlying concepts.
The research simply says that for a special class of signals our hearing system seems to be able to detect their frequency and timing more accurately than the uncertainty principal in Fourier predicts. It has no relevance to topic of audio measurements, or function of analog audio equipment. Extrapolating otherwise shows that even the most basic concepts here are not understood.
And again, much of our audio measurements is done in time domain with no usage of Fourier transforms. They are not bound by any uncertainty principal because they don’t attempt to quantify either time or frequency. When we use Fourier transforms, it is to decompose a signal, i.e. its distortion products. We don’t intend or rely on its frequency resolution.
• The common conclusion is that reproduction of sound from
20 Hz – 20 kHz with only the correct amplitude is completely
sufficient for sound reproduction, indistinguishable from the
original, but quite in conflict with the above mentioned
anecdotal findings and with what I hear.
Anecdotes and $5 will get you a cup of coffee.... Nothing in the research you are posting supports stuff like that. There was no test of human perception of frequencies above 20 kHz. Or impact of eliminating such. This is all stuff you are reading into the research which has no justification whatsoever.
Keep for yourself your theory that all there is to say about sound qualities is relative to your limited set of measures...
I don't have to keep what I have not stated.
Objectivist must learn psycho-acoustic science behind technology and develop humility....
This knowledge used to be part of job function and responsibility. Getting it wrong would impact the fortunes of the company I worked for and myself. Have you been similarly situated? What is your level of knowledge of psychoacoustics on scale 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest?
I am not perfect... But you are right and i apologize...
But think in my shoes... you dont read my posts at all and you did not understand anything about my fundamental points...I reacted perhaps a bit rudely...
i apologize...
I wish you the best and bear no grudge... Thanks...
Cin Dyment aka @othercrazycanuck: you couldn’t help it, could you? As soon as you saw Amir creating his own thread here you immediately rejoined Audiogon, with yet another username. Your 18th if I am not mistaken, but who’s counting…
@mahgister. Is there value in repeating the same arguments with just different wording? I posted a link that addresses this fourier limit that you raised. I am on holidays and it is too hot to be outside, so the rabbit hole was a good chance to cool off. The people in that link obviously know this topic very well. It turns out this was not an earth shattering discovery but something that was already known. This is not the forum for a long dissertation on sampling theory and fourier analysis, and I am probably too rusty for it, but some obvious flaws in your though process are evident, even one as simple as a song, recorded in digital has an analog filter to limit bandwidth and a window function to ensure it conforms to the requirement of Nyquist not unlike I am 100’s of other applications where similar processing is used and everything works just fine.
Appreciate you are trying to discover flaws in measurements, but a humble approach says that very smart people came up with these processes and they are unlikely to have missed, for many decades, obvious issues. If there is any consensus on higher bandwidth being audible? I can’t find it. Maybe I am wrong, but that seems to put a truck sized hole in an argument about "missed transients".
We can simplify it. It does not require a full dissertation that is above the heads of everyone here nor does it require a PhD. While down the rabbit hole, I discovered these experiments were done with basic audio DACs. Not only that, but I found someone did a similar experiment (fourier limit) and used MP3 files. If you can do the experiment with MP3 files, I think any claim you are trying to make is wrong.
I am climbing out of the rabbit hole, but I think this horse has been beat enough. It is dead and beyond reviving.
@amir_asr: 😂😂😂. All of the sudden, the author of that YouTube video will get millions of views now from your ~ 1.2 Billion followers who view you like Messiah. They will wonder, where the sudden fame came from? 😂
The main point was about the tools used to takes measurement, all applications of Fourier theory and his fundamental linear nature and his time independant basic nature...
The ears did not work in a linear manner at all and live in a time dyssimetric dimension for our fundamental perception...
All the measures taken about amplifiers and dac are tools of a linear nature in the frequencies domain basically... But How to use them to serve the non linear nature of our hearing abilities an his time dependant nature ?
We must not use Fourier analysis then with a naive idea about distortions coming from components and complete ignorance about the way human hearing perceive them...I cannot cite him about distortions it will be too long post...
Dr. Hans Van Maanen explain it better that i can here...
Here is a gist of his ideas :
«The temporal resolution of human hearing is at least an order of magnitude better than derived
from its frequency response, so it is very likely that especially metal percussion instruments
show a clear difference between ‘live’ and recorded sound...
Several instruments have a strong contribution above 20
kHz
• Several instruments have a strong attack, rapid change of
signal at start, with very clear high-frequency content
Learnings from literature
• Attack is essential part of the specific sound of the
instrument
• Instruments with a strong attack are the toughest to
reproduce in a “natural sounding” way
• Specific instruments: Turkish drum, percussion, (grand)
piano, cymbals, triangles
• But also human voices.
• The Fourier theory is one of the fundamental basics on
which the whole sound reproduction building rests
• It says that any signal can be separated in an infinite series
of (co)sine waves of increasing frequency
• It is known that humans cannot hear continuous sine waves
above 20 kHz and the upper limit decreases with age
(I know!)
• Tests have shown that human hearing is insensitive to the
phase of continuous sine wave sound signals
• The common conclusion is that reproduction of sound from
20 Hz – 20 kHz with only the correct amplitude is completely
sufficient for sound reproduction, indistinguishable from the
original, but quite in conflict with the above mentioned
anecdotal findings and with what I hear.
• Theory learns that to reconstruct the original signal from
the Fourier components also requires the correct use of
the phase
• Ignoring the phase response means that the reproduced
signal can, in time domain, be different from the original,
even if the amplitudes are identical
• As is shown, ignoring the phase leads to a change in the
temporal properties of the signal, which is clearly seen
from its envelope
• This has consequences for e.g. the attack of percussion
instruments and the grand piano
So is the change of the signal in time domain really inaudible?
• The anecdotes indicate that the temporal properties are of
importance for the perceived quality of reproduced sound
• Tests of Kunchur indicate temporal resolution of human
hearing of 5 – 6 μs (which is rather surprising with 20 kHz
upper limit of hearing)
• The Fourier theory has several conditions, like a.o.:
- the system should be linear
- the system should be time-invariant
• Human hearing is neither
So is the Fourier theory directly applicable to human hearing?
Although the Fourier theory has been well established since the second half of the 19th century, it is surprising that so little attention is given nowadays to the conditions, required to apply the linear theory. It has been applied unreluctantly to electronics and human hearing, even though neither fulfil either of these requirements. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that the
results are inconsistent with listening experiences.
It should be clear that when the conditions of linearity and time-invariance are not fulfilled, results, based on the Fourier theory, can be thrown straight into the wastepaper basket.
Regretfully, these conditions are rarely respected and without hesitation, the frequency response, determined with continuous sinewaves, is interpreted as if it were from a linear and time-invariant system. Which explains why the behaviour of the amplifier with dynamic signals (like music) differs from the (expected) behaviour, based on results obtained with steady,
continuous signals. To reproduce complex and dynamic signals like music well, the amplifier needs to be -next to a large number of other conditions- also as much as possible time-invariant and all its amplification stages should be as linear as possible. If not, artefacts will show up which manifest themselves mostly in the time domain and lead to a degradation of the sound stage and thus of the perceived quality. It is banging on an open door that the less an amplifier (also internally!) fulfils the requirements for a linear and time invariant system, the
larger the contribution of artefacts to its output signal will be. As several of these cannot be detected using continuous sine waves, these differences may not show up in the specifications.
This can explain why amplifiers with similar specifications give significant differences in the perceived quality.
The Fourier theory is very powerful and useful for audio, but it can only be applied correctly when the conditions imposed are fulfilled. The major requirements are linearity and time-invariance, but these are often not fulfilled, leading to incorrect results and conclusions. When the Fourier theory is used to predict the temporal properties of an audio system, one should realize that these conditions can only be approximately fulfilled. It should be verified to which extent the approximations will introduce deviations from the ideal, desired condition.
Then Any ASR review of amplifiers will not be a warrant of "musicality"... Then Keep your ears open... Measures and especially some limited set of measures dont tell all the story there is to tell....
Thanks Amir for the falsification of the Gear market specs ...
Keep for yourself your theory that all there is to say about sound qualities is relative to your limited set of measures...
Subjectivist are not in the obligation to stay ignorant about measures and hearing theories and fact...
Objectivist must learn psycho-acoustic science behind technology and develop humility....
By the way i am perhaps the only one posting deep scientific reason why Amir ideology about hearings and all perceptive "musical" qualities correlated by him to a narrow set of linear measures is just that : a marketing ploy, an ideology but not science...
Amir do a great sercvice by informing us , i thank him for that many times, the problem is that he really think the information given is absolute truth about perceived experiences musical qualities...They are not... And there is no more and no less deluded subjectivists than there is deluded objectivists... Psycho-acoustic is a too deep matter to be reduced to a limited set of linear measure on the gear based on Fourier theory or to be based only on gear fetichism ...
This whole thread is like watching a couple of old, slightly obese guys at a flea market arguing over whether the AMC Gremlin was a better car than the Pontiac Aztec.....either may or may not be right but it just isn't relevant.
Slightly obese??? I am not obese at all. See me in the middle in this video:
I did. Vertical directivity was a problem for me as any change in how I was sitting would impact tonality. See my listening expressions from the review:
I first positioned the panel right at me and started to play. What I heard sounded like it was coming from a deep well! I then dropped the little rings on the stand and repositioned the speaker as you see in the picture (less toed in). That made a big difference and for a few clips I enjoyed decent sound. Then I played something with bass and it was as if the speaker was drowned under water again. It wasn't just absence of deep bass but rather, quietness on top of that.
I don't know how you missed my response on the next page:
"The first time I tried Lexicon Logic 7, I found it captivating. Sat there enjoying a few CDs. But then the effect grew old and constant errors in how it created multi-channel from stereo became too much so I did not go back to it. It is definitely no replacement for true multi-channel as Carl states."
That is not at all "vehemently anti-upmixing." I tried it and it grew old. And this was with Lexicon algorithm. Perhaps Aura3D is better (see below).
As to Dr. Toole, this is what he said at that link:
"The only "faux" multichannel that I have ever condoned is upmixing, and the success of that depends on the nature of the stereo mix and of the particular upmixer - there are several quite different options. None that I have experienced are gratifying for all recordings, but I now regularly use the Auto3D upmixer."
I quoted the key section for you where he acknowledges it is not for all recordings. He listens to a lot more classical music than I do. I listen to much more modern music. That makes a difference as to whether you like the "faux" upmixing or not.
Note that our multichannel room is strictly for watching movies. It is a window-less room and I don't enjoy sitting there for music consumption. My main music system is in a different place that doesn't make it easy to set up multichannel. The content I listen to doesn't come in multichannel so again, it is moot.
The LRS was both measured by me and by Workwyn for AudioExpress with the same results. Speaker beams heavily creating a very narrow listing spot. In addition, it has little to no bass. These are facts enforced by physics of speaker design and there is nothing you can do about it:
Did you post the correct graph? I went and looked at the review. This is the vertical directivity graph. I think it should be narrow because it is a line speaker. This would be a feature not a fault. On your website, the horizontal directivity seems wide, but I may be reading it wrong.
To my ears, straight stereo two speaker playback ALWAYS has a particular sound to it, a degradation of the tone of center panned sounds that's unmistakable.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
